how many hours a week do you put in as a teacher?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm one of the PPs who religiously enters and leaves at contracted hours and typically only does about .5h a week of work outside of class (except for during assessment season 3x a year when it can shoot up to 14h a week for 3 weeks). I also have 2 kids and plans for up to 2 more. Of the 20 teachers in my building, I'm one of only *3* with children under 5 and one of only 5 with kids under 10. The building is definitely full of older parents who don't value their time at home. I'm not one of them.

I'd love to see how you get all your work done. Can you post your schedule?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"But you don't get to do lots of useless extra work and then complain about how little family time you have or talk about wanting PT hours while wanting the security of FT pay."

Excuse me? Useless extra work?

None of what you do is actually necessary, but you choose to do it because it has more value to you than the additional time you could spend with your family.

Why is it so hard to own that?

There you go, teachers.

Stop doing the extras. They are "useless" anyway. Work your contracted hours and what doesn't get done just... doesn't. Parents will have to pay someone else for what you normally do.

Sure, I'll just tell the students and parents that the extras are useless. That will go over well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm one of the PPs who religiously enters and leaves at contracted hours and typically only does about .5h a week of work outside of class (except for during assessment season 3x a year when it can shoot up to 14h a week for 3 weeks). I also have 2 kids and plans for up to 2 more. Of the 20 teachers in my building, I'm one of only *3* with children under 5 and one of only 5 with kids under 10. The building is definitely full of older parents who don't value their time at home. I'm not one of them.

I'd love to see how you get all your work done. Can you post your schedule?

This must be the Pre-K teacher. If her schedule is anything like the Pre-K teacher's schedule at my school, then that's why. The morning kids arrive at 9:00 then eat lunch at 11:00 and leave at 11:15. They have 30 minute specials 4 days/week and play outside for 30 minutes. Then the afternoon kids don't arrive until 12:55. They eat lunch when they arrive, then have 30 minute specials 4 days/week and also play outside for 30 minutes. The teacher only has to plan for a total of barely an hour of instruction daily because the lessons for AM and PM are repeated. She also has a paraeducator in her room at all times. If you can handle working with 4 year olds, it's the cushiest teaching job in the school system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"But you don't get to do lots of useless extra work and then complain about how little family time you have or talk about wanting PT hours while wanting the security of FT pay."

Excuse me? Useless extra work?

None of what you do is actually necessary, but you choose to do it because it has more value to you than the additional time you could spend with your family.

Why is it so hard to own that?

There you go, teachers.

Stop doing the extras. They are "useless" anyway. Work your contracted hours and what doesn't get done just... doesn't. Parents will have to pay someone else for what you normally do.

Sure, I'll just tell the students and parents that the extras are useless. That will go over well.

According to a PP, they are.

I suspect that PP would only consider them useless until they aren't done. Then that person would be amongst those complaining the most.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm one of the PPs who religiously enters and leaves at contracted hours and typically only does about .5h a week of work outside of class (except for during assessment season 3x a year when it can shoot up to 14h a week for 3 weeks). I also have 2 kids and plans for up to 2 more. Of the 20 teachers in my building, I'm one of only *3* with children under 5 and one of only 5 with kids under 10. The building is definitely full of older parents who don't value their time at home. I'm not one of them.

I'd love to see how you get all your work done. Can you post your schedule?

This must be the Pre-K teacher. If her schedule is anything like the Pre-K teacher's schedule at my school, then that's why. The morning kids arrive at 9:00 then eat lunch at 11:00 and leave at 11:15. They have 30 minute specials 4 days/week and play outside for 30 minutes. Then the afternoon kids don't arrive until 12:55. They eat lunch when they arrive, then have 30 minute specials 4 days/week and also play outside for 30 minutes. The teacher only has to plan for a total of barely an hour of instruction daily because the lessons for AM and PM are repeated. She also has a paraeducator in her room at all times. If you can handle working with 4 year olds, it's the cushiest teaching job in the school system.

LOL. I'd like that schedule; it's not mine, but yes, I teach Pre-K. You're welcome to switch to the grade if you find it that easy. It's the one grade in our district that has openings Every. Single. Year. Must be because teachers can't handle how cushy it is.

To the PP, I'd rather not post my schedule, but suffice it to say that my approach isn't common in the building. Of the 20 teachers in my building, I'm one of only 3 who actually leaves within a few minutes of contracted hours most days. The majority of teachers are there for hours afterward. I can only imagine they're busy wine tasting with how easy their jobs are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"But you don't get to do lots of useless extra work and then complain about how little family time you have or talk about wanting PT hours while wanting the security of FT pay."

Excuse me? Useless extra work?

None of what you do is actually necessary, but you choose to do it because it has more value to you than the additional time you could spend with your family.

Why is it so hard to own that?

There you go, teachers.

Stop doing the extras. They are "useless" anyway. Work your contracted hours and what doesn't get done just... doesn't. Parents will have to pay someone else for what you normally do.

Sure, I'll just tell the students and parents that the extras are useless. That will go over well.

According to a PP, they are.

I suspect that PP would only consider them useless until they aren't done. Then that person would be amongst those complaining the most.

"That PP" here. Considering I agree with the Finnish educational system that homework should be limited to a few minutes in elementary school and no more than half an hour in high school, I wouldn't count on it.

[Anonymous]

NP. Oh, I'm aware. Which is why I'm trying to leave my high FARMS rate school because of the culture that we must keep doing and giving more more more. If we bring up SES or situations at home we're told we're making excuses. The question is always what more can we give? More money, more time, more effort. As much as I love the kids, I'm ready to go to a school with a low FARMS rate and kids who can pass the standardized tests no matter what the teachers are like and so the pressure is off.

I don't want to have to serve on any more committees like the Family Engagement Committee because those schools don't need to rack their brains figuring out ways to get parents involved in their child's education. I don't want to sit at any more data chats and have to discuss why Alexander's MAP scores decreased from last quarter and when I bring up that he told me he didn't eat breakfast the morning of testing because he got to school too late because his family all shares one room in a house and the baby was crying all night so they didn't get to the bus on time, I'm told that shouldn't impact him as long as I'm identifying barriers to him acquiring a concept and differentiating my instruction accordingly. OK, let's just ignore the elephant in the room.

I want to be at a school that gets to have assemblies and field trips because there is money for it and the principal doesn't get worried that the kids will be missing content instruction for those things because they need to answer to their boss as to why the data doesn't look good. Speaking of money, I don't want to have to spend my own in order to be able to do my job. I also don't want to have to contribute money or food items for school events (for families, not staff) anymore. I give enough. I just want to be able to do my job and then go home.

I know the grass is always greener on the other side and working at a school with a high SES population has its own issues but I think I'm ready to trade issues. I do not want to end up like the martyr teachers down the hall who devote their own lives to other peoples' children and are at work until 8pm and work on weekends and have little in their bank accounts because they keep giving and giving. My own children are more important to me, and the reality is that we are not going to be working many miracles because poverty has a greater impact on these kids' lives than I do. Yes, I said it.


Did I write this? If I ever brought up anything at a data meeting about a particular child's situation, I was making "excuses." It's not an excuse, it's an explanation. Now I just nod and smile so we can get out of those waste of time meetings so we can actually plan for the next day.

[Anonymous]

It's sad to me that we all (that I saw, at least) agree teaching in a high FARMS school is more work than in an affluent school, and general consensus is that a solution to being overworked is just to move to a wealthier school.

Big picture though--those low SES students need strong teachers/mentors/clubs/opportunities as much (if not more so) than the wealthier kids. I've taught at both, and I know 1000% the after school basketball club was more valuable at the low SES school than the high SES school.

So how do we get and keep good teachers at those schools? Is there merit to a pay differential to encourage teachers to go there? "Hazard pay", if you will? Do we give those teachers one less hour a day of teaching and replace it with planning, to help build stronger lessons/prevent burnout? Or do we write off those kids on some level as lost causes, and just be okay with teachers moving across the county when positions open?

[Anonymous]

^ Teachers can't solve these problems; societies with less inequality and poverty are those that focused honestly on making more equal societies. That doesn't mean better lessons. It means the things Americans continue to oppose collectively: things like universal healthcare, guaranteed paid maternal leave, universal childcare, affordable housing, and living wages. The rich/poor gap starts from the day children are born and no school on Earth can change that. Until we actually work to make our society an equal one, no amount of punishing teachers or students with extra work and assessments will change the realities of students' lives the 16 hours a day they *aren't* in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^ Teachers can't solve these problems; societies with less inequality and poverty are those that focused honestly on making more equal societies. That doesn't mean better lessons. It means the things Americans continue to oppose collectively: things like universal healthcare, guaranteed paid maternal leave, universal childcare, affordable housing, and living wages. The rich/poor gap starts from the day children are born and no school on Earth can change that. Until we actually work to make our society an equal one, no amount of punishing teachers or students with extra work and assessments will change the realities of students' lives the 16 hours a day they *aren't* in school.

+1000.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's sad to me that we all (that I saw, at least) agree teaching in a high FARMS school is more work than in an affluent school, and general consensus is that a solution to being overworked is just to move to a wealthier school.

Big picture though--those low SES students need strong teachers/mentors/clubs/opportunities as much (if not more so) than the wealthier kids. I've taught at both, and I know 1000% the after school basketball club was more valuable at the low SES school than the high SES school.

So how do we get and keep good teachers at those schools? Is there merit to a pay differential to encourage teachers to go there? "Hazard pay", if you will? Do we give those teachers one less hour a day of teaching and replace it with planning, to help build stronger lessons/prevent burnout? Or do we write off those kids on some level as lost causes, and just be okay with teachers moving across the county when positions open?

Buy them a set of functioning parents?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

So how do we get and keep good teachers at those schools? Is there merit to a pay differential to encourage teachers to go there? "Hazard pay", if you will? Do we give those teachers one less hour a day of teaching and replace it with planning, to help build stronger lessons/prevent burnout? Or do we write off those kids on some level as lost causes, and just be okay with teachers moving across the county when positions open?

I've taught in these schools. What I feel would help would be to have more non-instructional staff members to help handle the social and emotional needs of the students. Double or triple the number of professional school counselors, or perhaps a couple social workers, an additional assistant principal, more parent liasons. We need more staff not assigned to daily instruction who can be available to intervene when kids get upset with each other (before it turns into a fight), to deal with bullying, to help be sure kids are hooked up to needed social services, to organize parent outreach, to make the follow up phone calls, to meet with kids before school and check in with them. To handle more of the emotional stuff so as teachers we can handle more of the academic stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^ Teachers can't solve these problems; societies with less inequality and poverty are those that focused honestly on making more equal societies. That doesn't mean better lessons. It means the things Americans continue to oppose collectively: things like universal healthcare, guaranteed paid maternal leave, universal childcare, affordable housing, and living wages. The rich/poor gap starts from the day children are born and no school on Earth can change that. Until we actually work to make our society an equal one, no amount of punishing teachers or students with extra work and assessments will change the realities of students' lives the 16 hours a day they *aren't* in school.

It starts at conception as many of these children are born to children themselves. I'd say half of my middle schoolers are pregnant by the time they are 17 yrs old. They continue to act like the teenagers that they are when they are pregnant. They don't exactly change their behaviors when they are with child either. Nobody in their families/neighborhood think this is a tragedy either. None of them were going to college anyway so what difference does it make if they finish high school? That's the general consensus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ Teachers can't solve these problems; societies with less inequality and poverty are those that focused honestly on making more equal societies. That doesn't mean better lessons. It means the things Americans continue to oppose collectively: things like universal healthcare, guaranteed paid maternal leave, universal childcare, affordable housing, and living wages. The rich/poor gap starts from the day children are born and no school on Earth can change that. Until we actually work to make our society an equal one, no amount of punishing teachers or students with extra work and assessments will change the realities of students' lives the 16 hours a day they *aren't* in school.

It starts at conception as many of these children are born to children themselves. I'd say half of my middle schoolers are pregnant by the time they are 17 yrs old. They continue to act like the teenagers that they are when they are pregnant. They don't exactly change their behaviors when they are with child either. Nobody in their families/neighborhood think this is a tragedy either. None of them were going to college anyway so what difference does it make if they finish high school? That's the general consensus.

Maybe we need to rethink how we do school in these kinds of situations then. Let's stop kidding ourselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

So how do we get and keep good teachers at those schools? Is there merit to a pay differential to encourage teachers to go there? "Hazard pay", if you will? Do we give those teachers one less hour a day of teaching and replace it with planning, to help build stronger lessons/prevent burnout? Or do we write off those kids on some level as lost causes, and just be okay with teachers moving across the county when positions open?

I've taught in these schools. What I feel would help would be to have more non-instructional staff members to help handle the social and emotional needs of the students. Double or triple the number of professional school counselors, or perhaps a couple social workers, an additional assistant principal, more parent liasons. We need more staff not assigned to daily instruction who can be available to intervene when kids get upset with each other (before it turns into a fight), to deal with bullying, to help be sure kids are hooked up to needed social services, to organize parent outreach, to make the follow up phone calls, to meet with kids before school and check in with them. To handle more of the emotional stuff so as teachers we can handle more of the academic stuff.

Or cut our losses. This sounds like a ridiculous strategy.